Category Archives: Technology and Society

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

Terminating The ISS

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General Bolden says that no single partner can do it.

Eric Berger says that Charlie doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

[Update a while later]

Second link was wrong, but fixed now. Sorry.

I should add that Zvezda is a much bigger problem than Soyuz (we could solve the latter simply by ending the irrational “safety is the highest priority” mantra). But that’s probably solvable too. If it were important.

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, Space, Space History, Technology and Society

Forget Safety, We Need Our Own Spaceships

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I have a follow-up to my Friday USA Today column, over at The Corner.

[Update a few minutes later]

At the suggestion of a colleague, lest I appear to be advocating kamikaze missions, the suggested language for the legislation might be: “The exploration and development of space is a national priority. Therefore, NASA’s first priority must be mission success in the critical steps toward reaching this goal. Consistent with this priority NASA shall strive at all times to achieve a level of safety comparable to that enjoyed by other critical national programs in extreme environments, such as deep-ocean and polar activities.”

The challenge and onus would then be on NASA and Congress to say why that is not a reasonable standard (which is currently met without all of NASA’s ridiculous safety/cost-plus/certification rigmarole).

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Popular Culture, Social Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

The Space Movement

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Is it moribund, and losing ground?

I’m not sure it matters, except to the degree that it influences government policy. Ultimately, it’s going to happen privately, if the government doesn’t prevent it. The flaw of past thinking of the movement was the notion that NASA was going to lead the way, and that it would need more money to do so. It’s pretty clear that that was never a realistic possibility.